Austrian Microbiome Initiative

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What is the Microbiome?

Microorganisms are the dominant life forms on Earth and thrive in every possible ecosystem - be it in a hydrothermal vent deep in the ocean, an agricultural soil or the human gut. While microorganisms are invisible to the human eye, they are not silent inhabitants but provide indispensable functions to the environment or host they live in or on.

For example, they catalyze essential biogeochemical processes in the environment and are thereby main drivers of the global nutrient cycles. They are symbionts of other unicellular or multicellular organisms such as plants and animals and determine the wellbeing of their host by providing nutrients and protecting against pathogens.

The ecological community of microorganisms (archaea, bacteria, eukaryotes, viruses) that live in a particular habitat is the microbiota and the collective genomic information of the microbiota is called microbiome.

Microbiomes in biotechnology (waste water treatment, drinking water technology, etc.)

Current microbiome research aims at revealing the composition of the microbiota, its distribution and temporal dynamics, and, most importantly, its function for the ecosystem or the host. This knowledge and understanding the factors that impact the microbiota is important in order to learn how to exploit or manipulate the microbiota for maintaining a clean environment, ameliorating consequences of global change or supporting the health of its host.

Research on the microbiome is thus naturally an interdisciplinary effort that requires close cooperations between scientists from different disciplines in the earth, life, and medical sciences.